Religious fascism -- then and now
Last year I made this comment concerning the execution murder of Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno on 17 February 1600.
It is now a year later, and the kind of religious bigotry that resulted in Bruno's death, as well as the imprisonment of Galileo, is growing in this country. The main source is not so much the Roman Catholic Church -- though they are certainly in cahoots with them -- but the flaky wing of Protestant Christianity.
Evolution is today what heliocentricity was in the 1500s, something that is viewed as a threat to dogma, and therefore a threat to the political powers of "priests."
Right after that is stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, which are two things that affect me directly, as I am an only child with chronic myleogenusleukemia.
At the present, bone marrow transplant is the only for sure cure for this disease.
I'm not ready to play Russian roulette with a transplant from someone else, even if the tissue "matches." Cloning new bone marrow tissue from some of my other cells would permanently cure the leukemia without the danger of tissue rejection problems.
I don't think that I, or any other leukemia victim, should be stuck taking some extremely expensive ($2600/mo) medicine if there is the possibility of a permanent fix without any other hazard being involved.
All of this jazz about "saving the unborn" doesn't cut it with me, especially when this country has the infant mortality rate that it does. The sooner we get cloning techniques developed, the sooner the use of fetal stem cells won't be necessary. Somebody will develop the technology, whether the US does or not.
We have abandoned the scientific high ground before. We abandoned manned space flight, except for the shuttle's near Earth orbital flights. The Chinese have put a man into space and have already announced that they will be going to the Moon. Bush's announcement of a renewed space exploration program will be very difficult to implement because of our abandoning of long distance space flight in the 1970's. Now we have to play catch-up which will probably involve reinventing the wheel -- i.e., boosters to get big payloads off the ground.
If we walk away from science and constructive technology -- and I think that this is a good possibility, given the current makeup of the Republican Party and the total lack of cojones on the part of the Democrat Party -- then we will have abandoned the last shards of leadership potential in the world that we have had. The mullahs will rule in Washington as well as Teheran.
Here endeth the rant.
Update: Michael Ventura's column in this week's Austin Chronicle just emphasises what I said. More fuel on the fires of ignorance and superstition.
It is now a year later, and the kind of religious bigotry that resulted in Bruno's death, as well as the imprisonment of Galileo, is growing in this country. The main source is not so much the Roman Catholic Church -- though they are certainly in cahoots with them -- but the flaky wing of Protestant Christianity.
Evolution is today what heliocentricity was in the 1500s, something that is viewed as a threat to dogma, and therefore a threat to the political powers of "priests."
Right after that is stem cell research and therapeutic cloning, which are two things that affect me directly, as I am an only child with chronic myleogenusleukemia.
At the present, bone marrow transplant is the only for sure cure for this disease.
I'm not ready to play Russian roulette with a transplant from someone else, even if the tissue "matches." Cloning new bone marrow tissue from some of my other cells would permanently cure the leukemia without the danger of tissue rejection problems.
I don't think that I, or any other leukemia victim, should be stuck taking some extremely expensive ($2600/mo) medicine if there is the possibility of a permanent fix without any other hazard being involved.
All of this jazz about "saving the unborn" doesn't cut it with me, especially when this country has the infant mortality rate that it does. The sooner we get cloning techniques developed, the sooner the use of fetal stem cells won't be necessary. Somebody will develop the technology, whether the US does or not.
We have abandoned the scientific high ground before. We abandoned manned space flight, except for the shuttle's near Earth orbital flights. The Chinese have put a man into space and have already announced that they will be going to the Moon. Bush's announcement of a renewed space exploration program will be very difficult to implement because of our abandoning of long distance space flight in the 1970's. Now we have to play catch-up which will probably involve reinventing the wheel -- i.e., boosters to get big payloads off the ground.
If we walk away from science and constructive technology -- and I think that this is a good possibility, given the current makeup of the Republican Party and the total lack of cojones on the part of the Democrat Party -- then we will have abandoned the last shards of leadership potential in the world that we have had. The mullahs will rule in Washington as well as Teheran.
Here endeth the rant.
Update: Michael Ventura's column in this week's Austin Chronicle just emphasises what I said. More fuel on the fires of ignorance and superstition.